Peter Diamandis has been named one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine. In the field of Innovation, Diamandis is Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, best known for its $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private spaceflight. Today, the X PRIZE leads the world in designing and operating large-scale global competitions to solve market failures.

Joshua Waitzkin – Considered a chess prodigy and the basis for Searching for Bobby Fischer, Josh has perfected learning strategies that can be applied to anything, including chess, Brazilian jiu-jutsu (he is a black belt under phenom Marcelo Garcia), business, and Tai Chi Push Hands (he is a world champion).

Ramit Sethi is an American personal finance advisor and entrepreneur. Sethi is the author of the 2009 book on personal finance, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, a New York Times Bestseller, and a co-founder of PBworks, a commercial wiki website.

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Please check out Tribe of Mentors, my newest book, which shares short, tactical life advice from 100+ world-class performers. Many of the world's most famous entrepreneurs, athletes, investors, poker players, and artists are part of the book. The tips and strategies in Tribe of Mentors have already changed my life, and I hope the same for you. Click here for a sample chapterand full details. Roughly 90% of the guests have never appeared on my podcast.

Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration)

I’ve read several of these, and I’ll definitely read more. “Life is Elsewhere” by Kundera is one of my all-time favorites. And Seneca’s shortness of life is really good, too. Totally modern, despite being a couple of thousand years old.

I’ve read 16 of these books. My favourite non-fiction of the bunch is Antifragile, and my favourite novel Shantaram – two books that can literally both change the way you see the world and how you interact with it.

I read Shantaram and enjoyed it but it broke my heart to find out it is fiction, its not real…maybe a little bit of it is the truth but for the most part it is made up. I was disappointed as he passed it off as if it happened to him. I felt conned.

I was thinking that too but I look at it in my own life. “Think and Grow Rich” was to me; the jumping off point. I look at that book that inspired me to seek more and more specialized knowledge. While I still love the book, I’ve since moved on to new favorites. Perhaps its the same with some of the guests.

Hi – really, really enjoying the podcasts – thanks! (and glad to be an overseas night time post guinea pig in the UK before the US wakes up …)

I realise you’ve got a million other things to do, but I was wondering if I could ask a short, specific question, please:

I’m very worried about Ebola. I want to help more people than I normally could (à la Tony Robbins’ podcast). I wondered if I could try and set off a viral donation video (like ALS ice bucket). [A very quick first idea – shotgunning beers (something we don’t really do in the UK … yet). #BoozeAgainstEbola ?]

Question: What’s the one thing I could do to give something like this a hope in hell’s chance of success?

Sorry to bother you – I hope this doesn’t count as spam – and please don’t reply if you can’t. Thanks very much – and thanks again for the podcasts.

Tim, you are the best Blogger of all time. It doesn’t even stop there. Everything you do,research, people you interview and “stuff” you find out we get to share with you FOR FREE!!!!!! Come on, you even itemize the juicy stuff for us if we don’t have time to listen to your interviews. Like who does that, Tim does. I will follow you forever, be a Quarterly subscriber and promote you always! You deserve recognition for your accomplishments and amazing generosity!

Hey Tim! I’m a big fan of yours and I wanted you to know I’m having some troubles trying to capture your web with Evernote Web Clipper in Chrome. I don’t know if you changed something in the web or it’s just me but it was perfectly working a few weeks ago. That’s all.

Your right! Atlas Shrugged is a way of life. It’s the philosophy of Objectivism. It is a philosophy that a lot of high performing business people live by. Mark Cuban is a big fan. Have fun going down the rabbit hole!

As a reading addict and someone who is reading a few of these authors’ works (James Altucher, Sam Harris, Peter Thiel, Joshua Waitzkin) I really appreciate this list. I really like this kind of post and would appreciate more of them…. It is so interesting to me to see the commonalities between people who are living in ways I find appealing.

Tim, my que is quite similar. I am in the legal arena, criminal defense, family law, personal injury. We influence for a living, often with high stakes on the line. After a handful of years in the trenches, I realized just how poor attorneys are at writing, influencing, story-telling, marketing and building psychological frameworks upon which to create a compelling narrative. As a passion, I have explored the globe and history for great minds, both living and dead. Here is but a taste of “required reading”:

Thinking Fast and Slow – Kahneman
Each and every essay or research piece that Kahneman and Tversky drafted
Science of Influence – Kevin Hogan
Neuroscience of Decision Making – Vartarian
Irresistible Attraction – HoganMetaphors We Live ByWhy People Believe Weird Things
Social Engineering
Perspectives on Framing
Human Error
The Heuristics Debate
Choices, Values, Frames
The God Delusion
Age by Propaganda
Heuristics and the Law
The Lost Art of the Great Speech
Split-Second Persuasion
Psychology of Persuasion
The Secret Life of Pronouns
Words that Work
Heuristics and Biases
Legal Blame
Check List Manifesto
Invisible Influence
Covert Persuasion
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Not by Genes Alone
Revising Prose
The Conquest of Happiness
Evolution in Four Dimensions
Finding Flow
The Signal and the Noise
Evolution – Prothero
How We Know What Isn’t So
The Winner’s Curse
The Culture Code
Invisible Gorilla
Myth of Choice
Drive
What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite
Brain Rules – by my boy Medina.
The Rules of Influence

Ok, that’s enough for now, the above is just the reading que for becoming an exalted, critical thinker and man-of-influence. I also consider the above core curriculum for today’s Knowledge Worker. After all, if you do not know “thy self” and cannot grasp how the bio-brain actually works and has evolved to work – then the rest doesn’t matter much – you will continue to folly and remain rather impotent.

I won’t get started on the spiritual stuff, that que is even longer. Tao, Toltec for awareness, Alchemy and the Great Work, Stoic philosophy, etc. – the list goes on and on and on.

Not fucking around with the audience, seriously – the books highlighted above (if well grasped) will give you insights and knowledge that few ever realize. Game Changers.

Thank you for this list! I usually try to write down what each of your interviewees say about book choices as I listen, but I miss them sometimes so this is handy. It’s interesting to see how so many different books can be an influence. The only authors I saw on multiple lists were Malcolm Gladwell, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Stephen Pressfield (although in this case, it’s only The War of Art, not multiple books.)

The post I’ve been waiting for!!! I have most of these books favorited, wish listed, or scratched on a forgotten sticky note. Thanks for the compilation, Tim. Time to get reading, if only your podcast was consuming the majority of my free hours.

Dude, you read my mind. Literally. I’ve had nagging thoughts to schedule time this week in fact to find the exact points where your guests share their books, specifically Tony and Peter’s plus Ryan’s to start. THANK YOU FOR THIS POST!! It makes your podcasts so much more of a resource and not just the insightful learning/entertainment it is.

Thank you for posting this as a compilation, it’s exactly what I was looking for when sorting through the podcast links! Very happy to subscribe to Audible and support you creating more podcasts with such interesting and intelligent guests. Bravo, keep’em coming!

You should always ask your “what books had the most impact on your life” question, Tim.
As the same for “At what are you world class”/”What’s your secret sauce”/”What were your aha moments”. I like also the mentor thing question and I’d gladly know what they gonna do in the future to keep on growing, stay competitive, get psyched about.

Great list! Thank you. I just ordered some of these books. Thanks for always offering great profiles on interesting people. I use your blog as a guide for the type of insight I want my blog to offer. [Moderator: link removed]

Thank you for asking the question when you’re doing the interview, and thank you! For compiling them here in one place. You could have left it as it is in your individual posts for the interviews, but you made things a 1000x easier for your readers, leaving no room for excuses not to read better.

Thanks for putting this list together. Time is everything and making time to read essential. Having a menu and cross reference list of people and their reading makes this an absolute deli of brain food.

a great book for a person is one that complements that person, brings something missing in that person’s life or brings the right challenge. That’s what makes a person better and eventually a happy & successful person.

you might need another book that’s not in this list, so reading all of them, might bring you joy and some ‘enlightenment’ but won’t be the shortcut you need for success.

Tim, I admire you and the work you do and have many of your books. This is an excellent post with many great books to choose from. My question is why is it that out of the 17 people you mention that only one is a woman? Thanks, Stephanie

Always love good book lists. Read some of the books you and others on your blog have recommended so far and have found them interesting. Keep up the good work. Also- I have read your books and am a fan!

You’ve got at least one typo in there: Wilderness Essays is John Muir, not Epictetus. Perhaps you mean the Art of Living (a translation of the Enchiridion?)

This is a great list except for Atlas Shrugged. It just goes to show that just because someone is successful, doesn’t mean he has good taste in books–or the capacity to see through logical fallacies and spot a bogus, sociopathic philosophy.

“This is a great list except for Atlas Shrugged. It just goes to show that just because someone is successful, doesn’t mean he has good taste in books–or the capacity to see through logical fallacies and spot a bogus, sociopathic philosophy.”

loving this post and hope it expands as more podcasts generate book recommendations, but I think one thing that is missing is the links to these people’s books. Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich should not be missed, and The End of Faith or Lying by Sam Harris are also required reading

I’m dealing with known American brand online sale of food supplements. Billed 3.1 billion dollars a year. For distribution in Spain / Europe. It is a very interesting business that fits the philosophy of 4h . And the right time to exploit this opportunity is now chosen as distributor in December . Honestly I would go perfect with a partner to share the experience and philosophy of 4h . Feel like ?

I have to say I find it interesting that none of the people you’ve listed here is female, and of the favorite books listed, only four are written by women (one mentioned twice). Are there no women who qualify for this category? I’m sure Nicole Daedone and Julia Cameron can come up with a few ideas. I’ve been enjoying this podcast series, but I think you might broaden your horizons a bit to include ground-breaking women. Maria Popova was great, but there are many other amazing choices. How about some best-selling female authors? It’s not like there aren’t plenty of those. Thanks.

One thing that would be cool is to rank the books that show up more than once by how frequently they’re mentioned. Antifragile and Black Swan for example show up a few times, as do Atlas Shrugged and The Rise of Superman.

Hey Tim,
Love this post. Is there any chance of making this list a tab on the blog so listeners can access it directly as new guests give their most influencing books?

Love the podcast; I look forward to each one. I have been listening since day one. Great stuff and very inspiring. I would like to tailor a lifestyle similar to yours. Keep inspiring and asking questions 🙂

Hi Tim!
A couple days ago i began to read your book, and after reading 6 chapters decide to contact you. This is my first exercise, like when your students try to contact with some celebrities! Wait for your answer

Howdy TIm, Thanks for compiling this list. It is very, very useful. I usually try to write down the books recommended by your guest on my Evernote, random pieces of paper, or commit to memory. Now it is all in one big list. Keep up the interesting work.
Salud
mh

My name is Xiao Qu. We are inventing a neuroscience based dynamic language learning experience as a startup project.

Recently after a long discussion regarding the theories behind designing, one of my group member pointed out that our designing theories largely resemble your language learning approaches published in the book “4 h chef” and other publications.

I’m personally checking out your publications; also I would like to invite you to our advisory board to help us better our learning experience design.

Here’s our mission: Enable every willing mind to acquire a FLUENT second language, using technology.

I am looking to read a book such as 4HWW with my 15 year old son. I want to teach him about money, life lessons/decisions, and achieving your goals, and expand his way of thinking. Can anyone suggest a book or series of books that will help me do that? Thank you in advance.

I am posting in response to your book not these books. I am about halfway through listening to your audio book. I am a pastor of a small church. I love your book so far and the principles. But I want to challenge you to help me understand how to make it work for me. In order to be efficient and effective at my job I need to be available to the members when they need me and to devote plenty of time to study for the sermons to be engaging and challenging. Many of the ways that you suggest to save time would cause me to come across as uncaring in a profession where that is unacceptable. I will continue listening to the book and brainstorming but would love your input. Also additional streams of income would be great to help pay for three sets of braces and get my kids through college. I am still trying to come up with a muse. All the ideas I have had so far would just take more of my time. Thanks for the book.

I like it, the lists are quite different from my personal 20 book favorites, but that’s what makes it valuable. If I can find just ONE book I love among the ones mentioned it’s worth it. I would love a pattern analysis regarding top recommended books.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (I basically buy a copy a month for anyone I’ve been talking to about it)

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (I’ve gave this one a few times to friends that we’re struggling with bad habits)

The Habit Journal (I try to give this to everyone I meet or I give them the free download that’s available on the website…ok I’ll admit its my book but I think it’s a life changer…shameless plug over :-))